Jad Chambers Blog Archive

Thought Luck

Steve Jobs. I’ll get this out of the way. I’m not a fan of the man. I didn’t like his company, products, or business model. The model seemed to be “charge twice as much for making it cutting edge and pretty.” No offense meant to any Apple fans out there, but it wasn’t the “blue collar, workin’ man’s” tech. Apple products were for the people who had money to throw away, or had no bills to pay. No question it was cutting edge and powerful. But I didn’t need the sort of “modern styling” that Apple put into its products. I didn’t care that my MP3 player didn’t match my computer and wouldn’t “dock” with it. I had a wire that connected the 2 and it was less than half the price of an iPod. It could have been shaped like a dog turd for all I cared about style. Styling was no excuse for charging what they did for their products.

Having said that, America (and the whole world) has lost a great man. He was visionary and genius in a way that is truly rare and always has been. He blazed a trail in the high tech world that EVERYONE followed or got lost along the way.

“Breaking Bad.” I just started watching this on Netflix’s Instant streaming service. WOW, Why didn’t anyone tell me how good that show was? Oh wait, they did. Constantly. People wouldn’t shut up about it. It kept winning all those awards. My apologies for being annoyed at its popularity and fans. It’s worth getting Netflix streaming just for that series.

While we’re talking about it, Netflix. I am almost afraid to write this paragraph as fast as the company is changing its mind about making changes. First a price increase, then splitting DVD and Instant services. Now the split is not happening, but prices are still up and STARZ (who provided lots of content) is no longer providing content to Netflix. And I don’t care and am still with them. What product’s price DOESN’T go up at some point? A price increase was inevitable. Losing STARZ, oh no, they’re losing old and dumb movies and a couple of useless TV shows (the exception being “Torchwood” which rules.) Netflix blazed a business trail making its movie and television content easy to access and cheap enough for everyone to buy (and a lot did.) And they made boatfuls of cash for giving customers what they wanted at a price they could afford.

“Are you listening up there Steve Jobs?”

Aww, I just made myself sad.

Anyway, Netflix is adding video games to its mail content. I’m ashamed to admit that when I first found out about that I actually made a girly squeal of glee. I had already made a huge dent in the DVD queue of my Netflix account. I almost didn’t need it anymore. Now I will probably never stop using it and paying for it. A while back I promised to tell everyone what I’m reading at the moment. Just going thru an old favorite, the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. Well researched medieval fantasy, fun stuff. But there’s no reason I shouldn’t mention what video games I’m going thru. There may not be a lot of video game enthusiasts listening to Steve and Ted in the Morning, but it’s never too late to learn. I’ll do that and give some recommendations next week. I promise.